Posted on 29 April 2011 | No Comment

That office romance may sound tempting, but proceed with caution

Dear MISSter Simms

I started working at a graphic design firm back in January and quickly became close friends with one of my coworkers there. It started out strictly as a work friendship, but overtime we started hanging out outside of work more and even spent time in each other’s apartments. I love spending time with this guy and really think I’m developing more than friendly feelings for him. The real question is should I try to start up a relationship with someone I work with everyday? I’ve heard about people who met their husband or wife at work, and people who’ve had things blow up in their face. What do you think I should expect if I decide to get into something?

Sweet Office Romance

Dear SOR,

While dating your co-worker might seem like a good idea that will lead to wild, adventurous work days and even more entertaining nights, there’s a ton of factors to consider before jumping into a lunch-time quickie filled office romance. Let’s take a look at some of the office romance pros and cons, shall we?

There are, of course, benefits to an office romance. Instead of waking up in the morning with a sense of dread, you’ll probably quite happily bounce into work with a smile regularly plastered on your face. When lunch time rolls around you’ll always have someone to eat with, and you might not even have to pay for your meal. Plus, while you’re eating you can bitch about your boss, be more openly flirty than you could be in the office, and possibly sneak off to a McDonalds bathroom to get your boink on (that’s how I roll).

But, like with anything in life, you can’t have the good without the bad. Kinda like you can’t have tons of salt without developing high blood pressure. And by bad I mean extremely horrible. Unless you and your boo are the most perfect couple ever, things will inevitably go south at some point, and you won’t be able to avoid your relationship problems because your boo will be smack dab in your face 8-9 hours a day. Dating a coworker could also lead you to push your other, non-datable coworkers to the side in favor of this one person, messing up your other (but still important) relationships. Other coworkers could catch on to your lil’ fling, get real nosey, and constantly be up in your business. You might not mind that so much, but you probably would if your boss caught on and thought you were spending too much time drooling over a guy than doing actual work. And, of course, what happens if you guys have a messy breakup? If you dreaded going into work before, you’ll probably be considering transferring offices or quitting altogether after that.

There’s a saying, don’t poop where you eat, that could be applied to the office romance situation. But like Ronnie from the Jersey Shore said, the right person could come along and make you wanna roll around in your poop no matter what. Just be sure to take a good, hard look at the pros and cons before you get covered in stuff.